horrified by drug side effects. Please take care to read your leaflets.

When I was nurse we used this lovely drug to help elderly confused people called melloril (spelt wrong). It often meant that people could go home from hospital and alleviated a lot of distress and anxiety. It was suddenly removed as an available drug as it was said to effect the heart rhythm and while I was working there had been found no decent alternative. We ended up having to give haloperidol which cause huge side effects in some eldery people and often death. Lots and lots of older people have sufferred and died as a result of the removal melloril . I was quite upset about it and never really felt its removal was justified.

I do not know what has happened in the world but I was given some tablets to relieve migrane. I took a tablet without looking at the leaflet and read side effects later here are some quotes

Common side effects 1 in 10

'heavyness,pressure, tightness, pain in the chest. These effects may be intense. If severe and continue get medical help urgently. In a very small number of people this could be a heart attack'

How small a number I wonder.

Some patients have the following side effects but it is not known how often they occur

' heart problems,where your heart beat may go faster, slower,or change rhythm, chest pains or heart attack'

Also under that section are visual disturbance and even loss of sight that may become permanent.

The drug is called Sumatriptan. Sod the migraine I will not be taking again.

I came across this kind of thing on the MS forum when somebody shared that the reason neurologists take chest x rays these days is because the new MS drugs affect breathing and one lady shared that she now had COPD as a result of taking the drugs and was now on a lot of steriods to control and I wondered then what the longevity of these drugs were. I dont think most doctors realsie and if they did they would be breaking the mastricked treaty.

[shaws Administrator]

It is awful that medications with such severe side effects, especially being given to elderly sick people who have enough to contend with. I am sure there must be other 'gentler' preparations to ease their symptoms without adding to them.

I am sorry you had a bad side effect as well and I think at first we don't realise what

is causing new symptoms.

[Hidden in reply to shaws]

Thankfully I have not had a bad side effect from this drug but am deeply alarmed that it is allowed on the market with a 1 in 10 chance of it affecting your heart and an unknown number of people who have had heart attacks. Something must have changed with the regulations a while back for this sort of stuff to be allowed. I have a general policy of not taking anything that has not been around for a long time 30 years or more as any longevity issues will be apparent as will any side effects. New stuff these days I will not touch with a barge pole especuilly after not reading up properly with this one. haloperidol has been around for a very long time but was always a last resort with elderly people untill melleril was banned. It is a rather brutal drug although useful for some people.

[shaws Administrator in reply to Hidden]

Some do have serious affects to some drugs - some of which might be used by lots of people who have no trouble at all (it would seem).

[Hidden]

Yes I know shaws and there is always a benefit wieghed against risk to take into account. I am happy to take drugs that may cause all kinds of serious side effects but not one with a common life threatening side effect for a condition that is nothing like life threatening. This drug seems to have crossed a boundry and appears to me to be profoundly unsafe. I do not consider a heart attack a side effect worth having to cure a headache and never imagined untill I read the leaflet that such a drug could be regulated. They make such as fuss about T3 possibly causing heart problems then prescribe this stuff.

[dtate2016]

I remember Mellaril it was a mild tranquilizer I wonder why they discontinued it? And yet has been my experience that many drugs especially inexpensive drugs that worked have been removed from the market and replaced by drugs costing 10 times more - whether they are effective or safe is in the periphial. I once had a doctor tell me those side effects listed on the leaflets are not real - but that they had to be put there Because of lawsuits ! I am not kidding the same doctor told me the same thing more than once on different drugs!! Needless to say I don’t see her anymore.

On a sidenote berberine has been prescribed for headaches especially the migraine type and I know some folks who have had great success with it.

Yes by all means become readers of the leaflets given with the drugs! Here in the US they’re allowed to advertise prescription drugs on TV. Many of my friends and I take a sort of dark humor attitud and laugh when they start listing the side effects of some of the most popular drugs - for instance “some people experience death when taking this drug.” Oh really? OK give me two of those!!